Monday, April 5, 2010

PZN News - April 5, 2010 - Wildlife photographer Scott Bourne is planning to teach a nude photography workshop and has just confirmed he has only shot 3 nude sessions that he was actually commissioned for by clients. Mr. Bourne is now soliciting photographers to pay him $1500 to teach a two day workshop on the subject.

In his Twitter comment, Mr. Bourne replied to a user, who retweeted our question, when asked how many nude sessions he had been commissioned for, to which he replied, "not relevant IMO since I'm teaching light, posing & biz." We are stumped at this response. Last we checked, nude photography requires its own lighting, posing, and business techniques. We are thoroughly confused by this ironic statement by Mr. Bourne who will be charging $1500 to teach attendees how to pose nudes, light nudes, and the business side of nude photography, all the while he has only been paid to do this three times. Yes, again, we said three. Uno. Dos. Tre!

PZN has also discovered that Mr. Bourne had just recently a workshop as a student himself, given by a veteran of nude photography, Carlos Baez. Mr. Bourne attended Mr. Baez's workshop in November of 2009 during the Partnercon conference period. According to Mr. Bourne's own blog posting on November 9, 2009, he does not claim to have normal day to day experience with nude photography, "I am not a regular nude shooter, but I have probably shot three or four projects in the past."

Mr. Bourne's own inexperience on the subject of nude photography can be best put in his own words he noted while working with one of the models at Mr. Baez's workshop, while reminding us he is best known for capturing the members of the animal kingdom, "I realized that as a wildlife photographer, I was going to have to use my imagination to get a shot that counted."

Finally, we were happy to hear Mr. Bourne was humble enough to confirm again what we had assumed from the beginning, "I am not very experienced at this type of photography..."

We had all of the supporting facts, including those by Mr. Bourne's own admission, to arrive to an educated conclusion regarding this report. However, we at PZN are never convinced that easily even with ourselves. So we went to our in-house PZN supercomputer; the Rockstar Commodore 64. We entered in all of the data we had collected and after 24 hours of calculating, blinking lights, and high rotations of cooling fans, our dot matrix printer output one of only two possible results. With 4 feet of banner paper, the output read "FAIL."

PZN has recently uncovered other similar photography workshops being given by photographers who have not actually had any commissioned work experience or even enough personal project experience in the subject matter being taught. The most recent was the embarrassing fiasco that exposed Scarlett Lillian, along with Stephen Knuth, who was irresponsibly given a title of "2009 Photographer of the Year" by Showit.com even though Mr. Knuth had reportedly shot only one wedding in his entire career thus far and was only working at a Starbucks the previous year making fresh hot cappuccinos for coffee lovers. The damning news came when it was discovered this one wedding Mr. Knuth shot was for one of his own relatives. Mr. Knuth has been charging unsuspecting photographers to shoot with him at workshops hosted by him. He has recently removed the words "2009 Photographer of the Year" from one of his splash images on his blog just in the past couple of days, however we have received reports he is still touting this meritless title. He did remove the large title after PZN exposed his irresponsible & reckless attempts to mislead inexperienced photographers & defrauding clients of his true experience.

In regards to the nude workshop and his experience, PZN has attempted to reach Mr. Bourne for comment to this story multiple times but he has failed to respond. PZN suggests attendees interested in Mr. Bourne's nude workshop to determine if $1500 is worth paying to an instructor that lacks the experience in this particular field. Mr. Bourne, a wildlife photographer, is welcome to justify this high cost, which equal to one month's mortgage or rent for some photographers who are already struggling to make ends meet for their families. We at PZN don't want anyone to go to a workshop and not get your money's worth.

If you are interested in finding out more details about the nude photography workshop, please click here.

PZN would also like to share that our editor/author/your slave Photogzilla Rockstar is going to be taking a cooking class on the art of making nude toast. We have been told the instructor of the class has made nude toast 3 times in her entire life. We look forward to seeing the results, along with confirming if the instructor will be nude as well. Our editor has his fingers crossed.

PZN News - April 5, 2010 - Wildlife photographer Scott Bourne is planning to teach a nude photography workshop and has just confirmed he has only shot 3 nude sessions that he was actually commissioned for by clients. Mr. Bourne is now soliciting photographers to pay him $1500 to teach a two day workshop on the subject.

In his Twitter comment, Mr. Bourne replied to a user, who retweeted our question, when asked how many nude sessions he had been commissioned for, to which he replied, "not relevant IMO since I'm teaching light, posing & biz." We are stumped at this response. Last we checked, nude photography requires its own lighting, posing, and business techniques. We are thoroughly confused by this ironic statement by Mr. Bourne who will be charging $1500 to teach attendees how to pose nudes, light nudes, and the business side of nude photography, all the while he has only been paid to do this three times. Yes, again, we said three. Uno. Dos. Tre!

PZN has also discovered that Mr. Bourne had just recently a workshop as a student himself, given by a veteran of nude photography, Carlos Baez. Mr. Bourne attended Mr. Baez's workshop in November of 2009 during the Partnercon conference period. According to Mr. Bourne's own blog posting on November 9, 2009, he does not claim to have normal day to day experience with nude photography, "I am not a regular nude shooter, but I have probably shot three or four projects in the past."

Mr. Bourne's own inexperience on the subject of nude photography can be best put in his own words he noted while working with one of the models at Mr. Baez's workshop, while reminding us he is best known for capturing the members of the animal kingdom, "I realized that as a wildlife photographer, I was going to have to use my imagination to get a shot that counted."

Finally, we were happy to hear Mr. Bourne was humble enough to confirm again what we had assumed from the beginning, "I am not very experienced at this type of photography..."

We had all of the supporting facts, including those by Mr. Bourne's own admission, to arrive to an educated conclusion regarding this report. However, we at PZN are never convinced that easily even with ourselves. So we went to our in-house PZN supercomputer; the Rockstar Commodore 64. We entered in all of the data we had collected and after 24 hours of calculating, blinking lights, and high rotations of cooling fans, our dot matrix printer output one of only two possible results. With 4 feet of banner paper, the output read "FAIL."

PZN has recently uncovered other similar photography workshops being given by photographers who have not actually had any commissioned work experience or even enough personal project experience in the subject matter being taught. The most recent was the embarrassing fiasco that exposed Scarlett Lillian, along with Stephen Knuth, who was irresponsibly given a title of "2009 Photographer of the Year" by Showit.com even though Mr. Knuth had reportedly shot only one wedding in his entire career thus far and was only working at a Starbucks the previous year making fresh hot cappuccinos for coffee lovers. The damning news came when it was discovered this one wedding Mr. Knuth shot was for one of his own relatives. Mr. Knuth has been charging unsuspecting photographers to shoot with him at workshops hosted by him. He has recently removed the words "2009 Photographer of the Year" from one of his splash images on his blog just in the past couple of days, however we have received reports he is still touting this meritless title. He did remove the large title after PZN exposed his irresponsible & reckless attempts to mislead inexperienced photographers & defrauding clients of his true experience.

In regards to the nude workshop and his experience, PZN has attempted to reach Mr. Bourne for comment to this story multiple times but he has failed to respond. PZN suggests attendees interested in Mr. Bourne's nude workshop to determine if $1500 is worth paying to an instructor that lacks the experience in this particular field. Mr. Bourne, a wildlife photographer, is welcome to justify this high cost, which equal to one month's mortgage or rent for some photographers who are already struggling to make ends meet for their families. We at PZN don't want anyone to go to a workshop and not get your money's worth.

If you are interested in finding out more details about the nude photography workshop, please click here.

PZN would also like to share that our editor/author/your slave Photogzilla Rockstar is going to be taking a cooking class on the art of making nude toast. We have been told the instructor of the class has made nude toast 3 times in her entire life. We look forward to seeing the results, along with confirming if the instructor will be nude as well. Our editor has his fingers crossed.